Trapped by China’s Great Firewall Use Snapchat with this Trick

Last Updated by John Bennet on November 11, 2019

China is the 800-pound gorilla in the room when it comes to Internet censorship. An entire generation of Chinese citizens has grown up without even seeing, much less using, the likes of Twitter, SnapChat, Facebook, and Google.

The largest Communist nation in the world has been policing its country’s Internet since 2002, and more than 60 restrictions have been created in the nearly two decades since.

China’s Internet protocol gives the government the ability to not only block websites to all citizens in the country but it can also monitor individual citizens since three Internet Service Providers, all owned by the government, are the only way Chinese citizens can get online.

The control is so thorough that outside experts have called it the “Great Firewall of China.” But that doesn’t mean people living, visiting, or working in China can’t get the sites they want to visit.

This blog will show you how to unblock Snapchat and other social media sites in China.

China’s Stance on VPN

China’s government has made noises about virtual private networks (VPNs) in recent years, cracking down on the sale of them in 2017. A number of Chinese-based VPNs went out of business because they were being funded by less-than-savory types.

The government also made it illegal for any Chinese individual person to sell VPN services. That eliminated all local providers of the service. The government has also blocked a number of foreign-based VPN websites for reasons it chooses not to share.

Such well-known names as OpenVPN, StrongVPN, PureVPN, and Elephant VPN are part of the 10,000 sites currently on China’s block list.

Tips for Picking a Good VPN for use in China

The No. 1 thing to avoid doing when trying to use a VPN in China to view censored websites is free or very cheap VPNs. These should only be used in an extreme emergency situation.

The logic behind this argument is that VPN’s that charge a reasonable amount of money per month are ones that use that money to enhance their project to get around the likes of the Great Firewall of China.

Cheap or free VPNs have to be making their money somewhere, and if it’s not from customer revenue, it’s likely because they are either selling your information to a third party – or even to the Chinese government or police force – or they are taking money to install spyware or some other form of malware into your system.

Either of these reasons is bad news for the customer and should be avoided at call costs.

A second tip involves security. Some VPNs boast that they don’t need kill switches because their product doesn’t need them. That’s a bit like an automobile manufacturer claiming their car doesn’t need seatbelts.

Unforeseen events are always a possibility when using a VPN and a kill switch can keep you from getting in big trouble when you’re using one in China.

Best VPN Choices for Unblocking Snapchat in China

Social media is one of the most sought after types of websites for Chinese people using VPNs.

VyprVPN hails from Switzerland and is all about security and speed. It starts with total flexibility on what kind of encryption you want to use; VyprVPN supports Chameleon, PPTP, L2TP/IPsec, and OpenVPN.

Its security is based on a strict no-logs, zero-knowledge DNS service and it adds in a kill switch and its own NAT Firewall for extra protection.

It’s no the fastest VPN on the planet, but it can hold its own thanks to more than 200,000 available IP addresses across more than 700 locations.

ExpressVPN is the 800-pound gorilla when you are talking fastest VPNs. It has servers in more than 94 countries, nearly half the nations in the world.

The speed often downplays ExpressVPN’s potent security. It’s one of the only VPNs in the market that routinely bests security in China and Russia, thanks to its AES 256-bit encryption, kill switch, split-tunneling functionality, and zero-knowledge DNS.

It has a handy 30-day money-back guarantee for all you skeptics out there.

John Bennet is an experienced data and communications engineer and cross-platform copy and content writer and editor with a keen interest in cybersecurity. He has been working with and researching, VPNs and other online privacy tools for many years.

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